In other words, fossil fuel companies face the risk that significant parts of their existing reserves will become worthless, un-burnable assets. These are stranded assets, which reduce the value of a company. This in turn affects the return to investors in the company.

So it makes no financial sense for companies to search for more fossil fuel reserves, which will also become stranded assets.

So they’ve stopped, right?

No. UCL’s Professor Paul Ekins, co-author of the above research, found that in 2013, fossil fuel companies spent some $670bn (£443bn) on exploring for new oil and gas resources. He said:

“One might ask why they are doing this when there is more in the ground than we can afford to burn. The investors in those companies might feel that money is better spent either developing low-carbon energy sources or being returned to investors as dividends.”

Your savings are losing their worth, because the chances are your pension fund, your bank, your favourite charity, etc. are invested in fossil fuels. This is because many funds invest in the top 100 FTSE companies as standard.

So how is the financial community reacting to all this?

Some have begun taking seriously the risk that expensive fossil fuel projects will be rendered worthless by future climate action: